


The Vow - #3 in Series

by KayCee1951



Series: Magnificent Obsession Series [3]
Category: Star Trek: The Original Series, Star Trek: The Original Series (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Not your usual ship, Story Arc, Story complete, things are complicated
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-15
Updated: 2020-07-15
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:40:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 3,850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25288459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KayCee1951/pseuds/KayCee1951
Summary: Promises can be broken. Vows are forever.Next in Series: Paradise Lost
Relationships: Christine Chapel/Spock
Series: Magnificent Obsession Series [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1832005
Comments: 12
Kudos: 8





	1. Chapter One

_**2284** _

**Chapter One:**

Chosen for its ambiance and privacy more than the proximal location to Starfleet Headquarters, Christine Chapel’s bungalow was situated on the shoreline of the Corte Madera Channel just north of San Francisco Bay. To say the bungalow was remote would be stretching it. However, the location did offer a modicum of privacy and a ubiquitous pier which was constantly in need to repair. Christine had spent her childhood and much of her youth in a historically registered house that fit the same general repair requirements.

Add to that a view from her kitchen window of the pier pointing like an arrow to Mount Tam across the bay, and her living quarters were just about perfect. The only place she would rather be tonight would be the cramped, metal box quarters on the Ruby G., but if not her, any other ship of the fleet going back to the frontier.

Since the incident in the lab eight months ago, which required complete reconstruction of both her lungs and much of her supporting respiratory system, she was chained to terra firma for at least the next sixteen months. Exile on earth, to assure a full recovery, came with a two-year assignment to Starfleet Medical as Director of Emergency Operations; and most recently, a stint as an instructor at the academy in Field Triage, a subject near and dear to her heart. Serving on the Ruby G. had provided her not only with a wealth of experience but a sense of what needed to be updated in cadet training. New challenges were presenting themselves on a monthly basis on the frontier.

It had become her habit, since she moved into the bungalow, to have a cup of tea before settling in to read medical journals or some obscure nineteenth-century mystery novel she had located. She preferred sassafras and noted that her stores were running low. Her next trip to Vacherie, in southern Louisiana, to visit her parents would have to include a trip to the New Orleans market. Since a blight in the last century had rendered the sassafras trees extinct in other regions, the sapling roots were protected and distributed on a marginal basis in the areas where it could still be cultivated.

She was filling the tea kettle when she saw him standing at the end of the pier. The stream of water from the tap had overflowed the kettle before she realized she had been staring at a familiar silhouette. She turned the water off and set the pot on the pad. Taking as deep a breath as she could manage, she let it out slowly. She watched him for at least five more minutes. He was still rooted to the same spot, watching the twilight slowly fade across the channel. Unless he had made a hundred and eighty-degree change in his habits, he wouldn’t choose a spot like this to meditate.

Christine surveyed her attire and found it lacking for receiving a guest. But he had seen her in less dignified garments than the nightgown she was wearing tonight. She was comfortable and had not planned to get uncomfortable. Still, she grabbed a shawl off the armchair in the reading nook and threw it around her shoulders.

He must have heard her approach because he turned to her and immediately raised his left eyebrow. Her feet were bare and the shawl had dropped off one shoulder. She drew the corners of the shawl across her chest against the chill in the air.

“It must be very cold out here for you. I was about to prepare some tea if you would like to join me.”

When he nodded and took a step forward, she smiled at him and turned toward the soft light coming from the cottage.


	2. Chapter Two

**Chapter Two:**

Gunmetal gray had become a signature civies attire for Spock. When not in uniform, he always looked more the Vulcan than just the stoic expression, sallow skin color, upturned eyebrows, and ear shape would suggest – as if that wasn’t enough. This night, he had opted for something less…severe.

Christine bumped up the heat before leading her guest to the small sitting area in front of the fireplace. They had shared tea often while serving on Enterprise. Similar to Sado, in purpose if not entirely in procedure, the sharing had become a carefully managed ceremonial closeness. They would not speak until the tea was poured.

They had not even been in the same sector of space in nine years. Earlier that day was the first time she had seen him since he became an instructor at the Academy two months ago. 

In the middle of her lecture, he had strode silently in and sat in the upper level of the lecture hall. Unnoticed by the medical students, he had remained in the shadows, presumably so that he would not cause any interruption to the flow of her lecture and interaction with her students. He had exited as quietly as he had entered before the lecture was over. And now she was sitting toe to toe with him sipping tea.

First words after a lengthy separation are difficult. 

“Did you have a specific reason for attending my lecture this afternoon or were you just passing by?” 

She knew the answer of course. Unless being acted upon by some force outside his control, Spock rarely did anything without a direct purpose.

He took the last sip of his tea and turned the bowl upside down on its saucer. “I have two cadets who might benefit from your tutelage.”

“Because?”

“I have consulted with several of their other instructors. We have agreed that both are subject to a certain propensity to overestimate their ability to maintain control in command scenarios. I believe the term is ‘swagger.’”

Christine nearly choked on her last sip of tea. She fell back against the wingback and gave a short-burst, half-suppressed laugh.

“Surely you see the irony in that,” she said, recovering her composure and putting down her tea bowl. After all, the very definition of Spock’s closest friend was swagger.

“I do.”

“Call my office tomorrow and we will send them the material I’ve covered to date so they can get up to speed.”

“I have already made arrangements with your yeoman.”  
  
She smiled. “I’m a little out of practice. I suppose I should have anticipated that. ”

“Your class enrollment is not why I am here this evening.”

She felt it. 

An acute vibration in the slender strand of connection they shared in the millisecond before Spock dropped to his knees in front of her, bowed his head over her lap, and clasped both her hands in his.

He spoke her name softly, but with an urgency she recognized.

She began to hyperventilate and escaped his grasp, and the chair, as soon as she could catch her first decent breath, bracing herself against the nearest piece of furniture. She did not want to face him.

Spock rose, distress evident in his voice. “Forgive me. You are unwell. It was my understanding that you had recovered sufficiently…”

“I am not unwell.” Still relying on the credenza for support, she bit on her bottom lip to return herself to some clarity. _How is this happening? It’s not only illogical, it’s impossible._

“Shall I take my lea…?”

“No,” she exclaimed and turned to face him. “You cannot pull the floor out from under me and then just take your leave.”


	3. Chapter Three

**Chapter Three:**

Christine furiously ran the math and timing in her head, weighed the possibility that the therapy had simply delayed onset after the first application, and mentally recalculated the level of hormonal imbalance to the threshold of tolerance. _Had he chosen this path instead of therapy?_

The thought made her at once frightened for his safety and furious that he had not consulted her.

All the while she watched him move closer to her without the resolve to stop him or even put up a protest. There were no tears for him to wipe away. When he reached for her hand, she took his pulse. It was normal – for him. She looked for other signs of distress associated with that particular hormonal imbalance.

“I am also quite well, Christine. I assure you.”

She could only manage to shake her head slowly. He was stroking the back of her hand with two fingers.

“Would you like to run a medical scanner…”

“No,” she said, breathlessly, “that won’t be necessary. I accept that you may not be…physically impaired.”

“I am also not impaired in any other way.” 

She pulled away and separated herself from him slowly, suddenly struck by the irony. “What are you doing?”

“I should think it obvious.” He knitted his brow. “If I have to explain, I must be doing it incorrectly.”

He had not been able to fluster her in more than twelve years. She was having trouble finding her words.

“Perhaps,” she managed, “You could have worked up to,” she waved nervously at the spot where he had knelt, “that…a little more slowly.”

Christine had fully recovered her wits now and was confident she could maintain that status as long as she remained a respectable distance from away from him.

“I should have thought that my being here at all would have given you some idea of my purpose.”

“Where you are concerned, I don’t trust myself to make objective observations. I trained myself to mistrust anything and everything about you that does not reek of logic. This behavior is neither typical nor logical.”

He reflected on her statement for a moment, then, clasped his hands behind his back and walked to the window. The night was completely black now, save the starlight on the horizon. “Then I have simply chosen the wrong approach. May I begin again, from a logical perspective?”

“Do you have a logical perspective?” she asked, incredulously, still wondering if he had some weird virus or someone had slipped something into his Altair water.

“I do.”

“Then, I’m listening.” When she saw him make a move toward her she put out her hand. “As long as you stay there.”

“As you wish.”


	4. Chapter Four

**Chapter Four:**

Spock assumed a less formal position, in the same spot to which she had relegated him, and canted an eyebrow. As he considered his answer, Christine waited patiently, arms crossed over her chest, and moderately relaxed against the back of the vintage davenport.

“You and I share an affinity. Would you not agree?”

“In the past,” she said. “An artificial byproduct of our encounter with Sargon. And we will never know if it was intentional or simply a karmic side effect.”

“Perhaps. It is merely speculation that we were subject to any residual effects. That theory has never been tested by any scientific method. However, let us assume, for our hypothesis, that there were side effects. Neither of us requires the other for sustenance or survival.”

“Agreed.”

“And our affinity, which you have conceded exists, is symbiotic, specifically mutualistic, in nature, regardless of the source.”

“I said, ‘in the past.’ You’re using the present tense as if there has not been a nine-year separation between us.”

“This evening, did we not settle into the same pattern that had been established long ago?”

She looked at the upturned tea bowls. “I suppose I will have to concede that.”

“Therefore, this _symbiotic_ relationship has become part of our nature?”

“And we should not deny our natures…nice segue. It still sounds like bullshit confirmation bias, but you made a nice presentation.”

“Thank you. I was working with limited empirical evidence.”

“At least, I know you are not under duress by any…primal nature.”

“The therapy you developed was a success. Twice.”

McCoy had folded at Spock’s first demand for him to acknowledge the source of the research. Nay, he had simply demanded that McCoy confirm it. And Leonard had never agreed to lie to him. She and Spock had co-authored two scientific studies together. How could she think he would not recognize her organizational style? She had not tried to remain anonymous out of naiveté, but out of desperation, knowing it was only a delaying tactic to take herself out of the equation. Spock had to make the choice without a crutch or an easy alternative. She would never have let him die, not that he would have subjected her to that fate - even if it killed everything good that had coalesced their holographic image of a relationship, so vulnerable to interference, so delicate that a soft breeze could rip it asunder. 

Spock could read the question in her eyes. “Have we been apart so long that you believe I am here out of gratitude?”

“I’m still finding it difficult to process the fact that you are here at all. Are you?”

“If that were the case, I would have sought you out immediately upon the success of the treatment.”

“Gratitude delayed is still gratitude.”

“It is not gratitude that compels me.”

“Then you admit you are compelled.”

“I do, and I am.” He stiffened slightly. “I had prepared for this to be awkward but had not anticipated this level of difficulty. Christine, do you not want this?”

_Unless being acted upon by some force outside his control, Spock rarely did anything without a direct purpose. And he was rarely spontaneous._

There was no mistaking what ‘this’ was. It was apparent with no need to be defined. Had she not wanted ‘this’? Perhaps she had trained herself too well. This very situation had been the dichotomy of their relationship, reading the same book but rarely on the same page.

As much as she loved him, she had grown accustomed to knowing that, although he was not uncaring, there could never be an expectation of more – at least in Human terms. But, then, her feelings for him had never been in strictly Human terms. She loved the Vulcan Mr. Spock, no matter how much he went to war with the Human Mr. Spock; knowing the turmoil that often ravaged him, she favored the Vulcan side to win. Even that she attributed to her early naiveté and eventually to the slender thread of connection Sargon had left them. She had come to think of Sargon’s bequest less as a connection and more as an underlying harmony.

As painful as the excruciating mortification forced on them by the Platonians had been for her, it was all the more painful for Spock. Of all the women on the Enterprise they could have chosen for his humiliation, they chose her. As deeply troubled as he had been by his failure to protect her, he had been more troubled by the possibility that he had been the conduit – their harmony, however tenuous, providing fodder for the feast.

Another bell that could never be un-rung.


	5. Chapter Five

"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,

Than can be dreamt of in your philosophy.”

 _Hamlet (1.5.167-8, Hamlet to Horatio,_ William Shakespeare

**Chapter Five:**

He had made reference to their ‘relationship.’ How many years had it taken for him to even refer to what was undeniable, albeit transitory, between them as such? V’ger had changed his perspective on many things and it had allowed them a more relaxed interaction over the next four years before she left for the Ruby G. Christine had fully expected that to end when she left the Enterprise. She had prepared for it, made peace with it.

“Perhaps we have been apart for too long,” Spock said. He had not moved from his appointed spot. “I had not considered that your sensibilities might have changed.”

There may be a great many things she could deny, but loving him was not one of them.

“No, Spock, my _sensibilities_ toward you are the same. Time and distance will never change that.” There was not a hint of sadness in her voice. In fact, she graced him with one of her most endearing smiles. 

“For me as well.”

Only then, did her resolve crumble, but she still managed to say, “Maybe you should have led with that.”

~~~~~*~~~~~

“So you were winging it?” Christine said. She had gone into the kitchen again, but this time emerged with another cup of tea for Spock and a Scotch neat in a whiskey snifter for herself. After handing him the tea bowl and saucer, she settled herself back into the wingback.

“I believe that would be the colloquial equivalent.” Spock sat in his chair across from her.

“I take it you didn’t discuss any of this with Jim before…coming here?” His initial action was beyond verbalization.

“I did not. That would have required a good deal of explanation and I did not wish to reveal certain aspects of our relationship that might violate your privacy.”

“I do appreciate that.” Sometimes Spock could be so endearing, she forgot that, although his body may be half-human, his mind, spirit, and philosophy were primarily Vulcan. She had come to know that she did not love the Human Mr. Spock quite as much as she loved the Vulcan Mr. Spock. 

“I suppose I must take some responsibility for your current reluctance to accept this…”

“Proposition?” She wanted to call it what it was before he attached some bullshit euphemism to it.

“Mutually beneficial arrangement.”

_And he did it anyway. Just can’t help himself, like an addiction. Always sounds good though._

“And why would you take responsibility?” she asked, smiling for a reason he would never legitimize.

“Doctor McCoy has, on more than one occasion, accused me of keeping you at arm’s length; far enough away to avoid the appearance of covenant yet close enough to reap the benefits of same.”

Although Christine imagined McCoy expressing himself in a somewhat less selective vocabulary, it sounded like McCoy.

“You’re listening to Doctor McCoy, now?”

“Recently, I have entertained the remote possibility that he might be correct in his evaluation of my past deportment where you are concerned.” 

She chuckled and then sighed. “Don’t ever tell him. He might have an aneurism.”

“For the record, I have no plans to give him that kind of satisfaction.”

“That’s more like it. I was about to whip out the medical scanner. And, for the record, he’s full of it. It is impossible for him to be objective where either one of us is concerned.”

Spock put down his half-consumed tea on the hearth, careful not to make any moves that would signal he was about to repeat his earlier attempt at declaration.

“Christine, are you are delaying your response because you are trying to devise a way to reject my…proposition?” He reasoned that the word had an alternate connotation than the one she had suggested.

“No. But I do need some time to think about it,” she whispered. For a moment she entertained the thought of reaching out to touch his hand to demonstrate how sincere she was in that statement. This was not the time to let down her guard.

“Please. Take the time you need.”


	6. Chapter Six

**Chapter Six:**

Had Spock proposed this kind of arrangement to her eighteen years ago, her reaction would have been vastly different. Young and stupid as she was, she would have jumped at the chance to be in a physical relationship with him – no questions asked, no reservations, no terms but his. She marveled and was sometimes appalled, at just how young and stupid she actually had been.

Had it been even possible, they might never have had what was only possible now. They had history. Healthy interpersonal relationships require history, even Vulcan ones. Neither of them was possessed of the same perspective they had so long ago – it seemed eons instead of years since she had walked into his office on the Enterprise for the first time. 

Broken down to its most basic component, the ‘mutually beneficial arrangement’ was such that it essentially reduced her to an educational tool. _If_ she agreed, she wanted to come out of it without the loss of the delicately balanced, closely guarded, and mutually protected affinity they had been able to construct. It had apparently survived nine years of separation. Would it, then, survive sixteen months of experimentation?

Where did the clinical scientist end and the woman, who, at her core was as Human as it gets, begin? Would she be able to let go?

~~~~~*~~~~~

Who was she kidding? Of course, she had agreed - but with a binding caveat.

One: He would respect her desire for privacy and anonymity. He would not discuss their relationship, former or current, with anyone.

Two: No touching of minds, short or long term, in any form, beyond that which already existed without her express permission.

When she presented these seemingly simple terms to him he promised, without reservation, to comply.

“No, I do not want your promise,” she declared. “Promises can be broken. Vows are forever.”


	7. Chapter Seven

**Chapter Seven:**

He had given his solemn vow.

Arriving at the front door of the bungalow, he found that Christine had abandoned the comfortable, utilitarian nightgown of the previous evening for a sheer, iridescent peignoir precariously tied at the waist that clung to every curve and female feature she possessed. 

Tea had been prepared for him, a glass of white wine had been poured for her. She apparently no longer required the kind of artificial fortitude provided by Scotch this evening. In an effort to be spontaneous, he asked if he could join her in a glass of wine. While she went to the kitchen to retrieve another long-stemmed glass, Spock abandoned the over garment and tunic he had needed to stay the chill coming off the bay.

Striding back into the living room she was again struck by the contrast of Spock out of both Starfleet and Vulcan uniform. Without all the accouterment and the ears, he could have been a man coming home from work at the hall of records instead of the legend he had already become.

He took the glass of wine and sipped slowly without taking his eyes off hers. They were communing without words or mind-voice. _Touching but never touched_. Something they had discovered by accident not long before she had departed for her new post on the Bradley.

She had missed the peacefulness and serenity that came with the affinity Sargon had left them. Likely, in his own Vulcan way, he had as well.

When they abandoned their empty glasses, she raised her hand to meet his, palms and fingertips touching. He stroked the back of her hand with two fingers, confident she would not pull away. She touched his face and softly kissed him for the first time since the Platonians had forced them together so many years ago. Once they were both sure that those painful memories would not intervene, they abandoned themselves to their shared connection and shed, like an outgrown protective shell, all the years that had gone before.

~~~~~*~~~~~

The next thirteen months were, indeed, mutually beneficial. Until the colossal disaster that was Genesis ripped not only their peace and serenity but their lives to shreds.


End file.
